Leah Wolchok grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and moved to the Bay Area in 1999 after a brief stint writing textbooks in Taiwan. While living in San Francisco, she created an animated series about science for teenage girls and produced three short documentary segments for Oxygen TV. Most recently, she worked as an associate producer on a series for the Travel Channel and an hour-long documentary about industrial design for Discovery. She graduated from Yale with a BA in English.

City of Mermaids
digital video
15 min.

City of Mermaids is the story of preserving Florida kitsch, told through three generations of mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs.  The film traces the rise and fall of an underwater theme park eclipsed by Disney and now struggling to survive.

Living to Work
16mm, color film
9:02 min.

A visual meditation on the American obsession with overworking.

FESTIVALS AND EVENTS:

• Silverdocs, 2005
• San Francisco Independent Film Fiestival, 2005
• Boulder International Film Festival, 2005
• BIFF Best of Shorts, 2005
• Jacksonville Film Festival, 2005
  

Worth Saving
Co-directed by Gretchen Hildebran and Leah Wolchok
digital video
10 min.

About a program that trains drug users to save each other's lives. Overdose is the leading cause of death for injection drug users in San Francisco. The Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE) project is working to stem this crisis by teaching drug users how to rescue someone from an overdose and by prescribing them a common antidote to heroin overdose. Worth Saving documents the effect of this training on two DOPE project participants as they save lives and find hope for their marginalized communities.

Distibuted by Fanlight Productions

FESTIVALS AND EVENTS:

• HBO Frame by Frame – Documentary film series, SF, 2004
• Home Street Home Gala Fundraiser for the Coalition Homelessness  SF, CA, 2004
• Hype Fest, Los Angeles, CA, 2004
• "In the Streets" - Street Theater Festival   SF, CA, 2004

Kosher Cop
16mm, black and white film
3:28 min.

It's all about fire, water, and unlimited cell phone minutes. Kosher Cop explores the hectic life of a Berkeley rabbi who kosherizes restaurants and production plants throughout Northern California.

FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS: